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"The
Tsunami hit me twice"
It was on Sunday morning, December 26th 2005, at 7am,
when I rode my motor bike to the seaside about 4 Kilometers
from my house in Jeulingke Village, sub district of Syiah
Kuala, Banda Aceh,Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. I intended
to go fishing so before I arrived at Alur Naga beach
I bought shrimps as fish bait. At around 7.40am, I started
fishing. After 20 minutes or so of my activity, I still
hadn’t caught any fish. At 8am, I was alone on
the beach when the 8.9 SC earthquake began. The boulders
I was standing on to fish began to shake vigorously.
I held the rocks tightly with my left hand and with my
right hand held the fishing tackle. On the beach I cast
my eyes to the village where I saw coconuts trees crash
upon each other, whilst people along the beach sat down
praying to God. My heart was beating wildly as this happened.
After about ten minutes, the earthquake stopped.
I didn’t move from the place, when I saw the water
didn’t move at all. It was just like water in a
glass. I thought everything was back to normal, so I
took new shrimp bait and continued fishing. Five minutes
later a big, normal shaped wave rushed towards me. The
wave was about 70 cm onto the boulders (about 3 meters
from the sea). I was so frightened, as it was so unusual.
I started to run to escape so half of my trousers became
wet. I succeeded in reaching my motorcycle in about seven
minutes. Then, I rested for several minutes.
Soon afterward, I became involved in a conversation with
a fisherman, about 70 years old. I asked him many questions
regarding the earthquake. He mentioned that in 1964 a
similar scale earthquake had happened in Aceh. While
we were discussing this, we had a big surprise. Suddenly,
the water in the sea withdrew to the center of the sea.
It was unbelievable that in five minutes more than 1
Kilometer of the sea bed was dry. I could see many fish
and many other things on the base of the sea and river.
I didn’t run yet. I continued talking with the
old man. The old man wanted me to call the fishermen
to come back from the sea and return home. But suddenly
I saw the 10 meter tsunami wave rush to the shore. It
was about 500 meters in front of me. Then I started to
escape with the motorbike immediately. I went about 90
KM/ hour and unstable mentally. I was so surprise when
I saw a big hole on the road in front of me. I had no
choice and my motorbike sunk into the landslide caused
by the earthquake, I tried as hard as possible to wake
up. I succeeded the first time, but the same thing happened
a second time. When I sunk into the hole a third time,
the tsunami wave hit my back and my motorbike.
A miracle happened, I was able to wake up in that critical
situation, and the motorbike’s engine had not died
even though it was full of water and muddy and even though
most of my body was wet. To illustrate, on my right and
left, the roads were rivers. Actually the first round
tsunami was 4 meters high but the water filled the river
first. I ran again as fast as possible. When I arrived
on Jembatan Krueng Cut (a bridge), I stopped for 15 seconds
and turned my eyes as I saw the second round tsunami
was about 20 meters high. Strangely, I had no ideas or
intention to run and escape to higher levels. I remembered
my wife and daughter. I rode my motorbike at about 100
Km/hour. I was about 1 Km from the bridge and in just
five minutes I arrived at home.
At the time, most people had gathered in front of their
houses to avoid the cracks in the houses due to the earthquake.
I parked my motorbike. My wife, Setia Dani was close
to me. I told her that a tsunami (at that time I didn’t
understand the term‘tsunami’) would come.
I loudly announced to all the people around me, but no
one believed me. Suddenly, I saw a tsunami wave, 6 meters
tall, about 70 meters in front of my house. The tsunami
wave rushed towards us very fast. I could see many big
houses were broken, the water was fully black. Then,
I held my wife’s hand and we ran as fast as possible.
Our daughter Aisya Zakia Safira was with our oldest sister
Ruhama, who held her when the first earthquake came.
What ashamed, we were just able to run 30 meters when
the tsunami pushed us at the back. We were not able to
run quickly due to the many people escaping using motorbikes
and cars at the same time on the road. Also a hundred
people around us were crying for help. The wave was getting
higher and higher when it brought us 200 meters from
our house.
Luckily, the water didn’t bring us to the main
road where the tsunami flowed very fast. My wife was
almost not able to hold my hand. In that critical situation,
suddenly, a piece of wood hit my back and we fell down
making our bodies wet and full of mud. I saw my wife
drink the water. It continued to carry us into the yard
of a big house. We were turned around just like a fan
until the water pushed us near to the door of the house.
We were almost dead, if the door didn’t open, due
to a car coming toward us, about to hit us. Fortunately,
the water hit the door and it opened. At the same time,
the wave carried us into it. It is very difficult to
explain how hard the water was. Our body hit the wall
and the equipment in the house. Still in the place, the
water churned all around us and all of the furniture
and equipment in the house fell down. It was lucky; a
cupboard fell down just in front of us, so we got onto
the cupboard as I saw the water 4 meters away. We thought
that we were in a safe place after riding on the cupboard.
But suddenly my eyes turned to the other corner of the
house and I saw that the water level was above our position.
We cried loudly as the concrete wall of the house broke
down and the water flowed again into our site. At that
time, we thought we would die. The water level reached
6 meters. We had no way to escape. So much rubbish was
carried into the house.Our mouths were just praying then
that God would help us as there was only about 5 cm remaining
space for us to breathe, because above our heads was
a concrete ceiling for the second floor. Then the water
began to subside.
Still on the cupboard, I saw a two and a half year old
boy carried by the water into the house. My heart said
that I must help the boy. Then using a piece of wood
I tried to get close to the boy. I almost failed as for
the third time the tsunami rushed at me. Fortunately,
I could concentrate on reaching the boy and finally I
was able to bring the boy to the cupboard where my wife
was crying to see my efforts. (The boy was still alive
and then I recognized him as the son of my neighbor.
His mother and youngest sister died but his father was
still alive). We stayed on the cupboard for about thirty
minutes waiting for the water to subside. The mud around
us was thicker than other places as about 2 km from my
house was a fisheries area. I had no words to say at
that time. I was just too aware that I just live in the
world for a short time. When the water receded at 2 meters
depth, I realized that actually there were two other
people in the house. I recognized the owner of the house
and his mother who was dying. I asked my wife to keep
guarding the boy then I clothed the man who was about
50 years old and his mother who was about 70 years old.
After helping them, he showed me the stairs where I could
go up to the second floor of house. I held my wife’s
hand and put the boy on my shoulders. When I reached
the second floor, I was surprised by the miraculous sight
that everything was flattened. Most houses were broken
down and about three meters of rubbish filled in any
spaces. When the water receded to 1 meter depth, I firstly
saw the four people who died from wounds from a car.
I cried very hard as I didn't know where were our families
were. Four hours later, I was still frustrated. Suddenly,
a man crossed in front of the house and informed me that
my 8 month old baby was still alive. I almost didn’t
believe the news! Soon afterwards, I searched for the
place where my baby was. It was very difficult to walk
due to the rubbish, nails, zinc and other sharp tools
but I didn’t care about it. After one hour of searching
I found my daughter on the second floor of a play station
shop with my older sister in a critical condition; her
mouth, ears and eyes full of mud. She had no clothes
on her body. Even though I was very tired, I brought
her to the place where my wife was waiting. I was frustrated
because I had no water to clean her body and no clothes,
and up to six that evening, all of us had no food to
eat. Then I made the conclusion I should move to another
place, but I didn’t know where I should go. After
walking 2 Kilometers, I met someone whose house had not
been reached by water. He asked us to stay at his house
for a while. After walking on foot for two hours, we
arrived at the house in a very tired condition. I was
not able to see my daughter, because she was crying all
the time. We had no food, clothes or water. I tried to
find water in bottles in the rubbish.
Luckily, I found three bottles which were not yet opened.
At about 11pm that night, the owner of the house give
us rice and some clothes. However, the problem hadn’t
stopped yet; we had difficulty sleeping as the earthquake
happened eleven times more in the night. I was also confused;
two of my families had disappeared. The night went on
without sleep. We stayed in a non IDPs camp for three
days before we went back to my place of birth in Pidie
district, 160 Km from Banda Aceh. It was very hard for
me to face those five days when my daughter had diarrhea
from the mud, ten days with blue water and five days
with blood. She was so thin and her body remained at
just 4 Kg in weight. She recovered with traditional drugs.
Ruhama, our sister who helped my daughter, died ten days
later as suffering from tetanus, because she got insufficient
drugs.
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